First Semi-Final concludes

The first ten finalists (beside those already known, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom and last year’s winning country Sweden), will take part in the Grand Final of the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest, which takes place on Saturday the 18th of May. Another ten finalists will be chosen in the Second Semi-Final on 16th of May.

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The result was determined by way of a 50/50 split between national expert juries and televoting. The combined scores created the final outcome. In yesterday's Jury Final, the expert juries already determined their votes for the First Semi-Final by watching the live performances. Televoting took place tonight during the live show.

16 Songs: 19 countries voted

Sixteen songs have participated in the First Semi-Final, and professional juries and viewers in each of the participating countries, as well as in Italy, Sweden and the United Kingdom have voted tonight. For the first time, smartphone and tablet users had a chance to vote using the official Eurovision app.

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Each jury is comprised of five members, (including a chairperson). Each jury member ranked last night all the songs in the show and TV viewers have voted during tonight's show. The EBU's televoting partner Digame merged the points given by the jury and the televoters per individual country.

About the show

The First Semi-Final was open with a three-minute clip called Euphoria from Baku to Malmö, showing different "interpretations" of last year's winning song from different corners of Europe and Israel. Then the view switched to the stage, where a children's choir performed Euphoria including a translation into sign language. Later they are being joined by Loreen.

After the intro, Petra Mede, the host of the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest entered the stage - she lifted onto the stage on a podium from below. Of course, as it has been a tradition since the 1950's, she greeted TV viewers from all over Europe and beyond in English and French.

After the performance of 16 contestants, the audience in the Malmö Arena and millions of viewers across Europe could enjoy the interval act called Northern Lights.